Any Way Out of This Dream
by Xany Kaos
Summary: Immediantly after the fallout of the House of M, Toad finds himself holed up in a bar, drinking, and trying desperately to sort out the two lives he now remembers living.


AN: This is just something I wrote up after House of M. Specifically, after the first issue of 198, where Toad was cool, but struck me as kind of tired. Sort of "Yeah, yeah, it's a huge friggen crisis and the world's gone wacky. Again. Honestly, I'm old, I've been around, I've seen things. This ain't nothin' new." Originally to be called "The Side of the Angels" because I wanted to do Toad musing about how he had teamed up with the X-men at the end, and whether or not he should join the other former villians, or keep trying to do the solo act that never worked.

But I digress. The point was, the way the Red Guard was done in HoM hinted to me that Mort of Wacky-Wanda-Verse was a very different, and much better off person. Concern for a teammate because he's your teammate? Position of respect? Best-selling novel? (Okay, I'm not sure where that came up, but I keep reading about it being mentioned or something, so...)

If Spidey had a hard time coping with the duel memories, and he was coming from a reality where he still had a lot of love, and a fairly decent life (compared to some) and was relatively the same kind of person, then I can only imagine the difficulty poor Mort had coming to terms with the fake life Wanda gave them. (And yes, while HoM was in progress, I amused myself by basically coming up with Toad's entire alt-life. Oh, Toad alt-lives...you're so much fun...)

Toad, Marvel, X-men, and the whole House of M fiasco is entirely the fault of (and therefore copywrite) Marvel Comics. The line "Madness is the emergancy exit," for them what wonder, is a quote from Alex Moore's "The Killing Joke" argueably one of the best Batman comics ever written. The title is a Tom Wait's song, specifically "Is There Any Way Out Of This Dream." Right, well...here we go:

* * *

I wish I knew what I was doin' here. 

I woke up this morning, and the world was mad. Completely bat.

And I know why.

That's the thing that keeps buggin' me. I _never_ know why. I'm always the last fella to find somethin' out, the one the higher-ups keep in the dark. The loser. The court jester. Even with my mutation stabilized, I'm still a joke. And I never know what's really going on.

So why do I know? Why do I remember, and no one else does? Why is it that before everything went all white, I remember being in a battle? Being in a uniform. Fighting _with_ the X-men, for crying out loud! And then I woke up, lying on a pallet in Genosha, grabbing for someone who wasn't even there. And the whole world was mad. Genosha's never really managed to stay a peaceful place--seems like every month or so, there's some new catastrophe that has everyone in a panic. But this...this was different. Still screaming, of course, but mixed in with relieved laughter, tears of loss and joy. Either everyone just had their lives stripped from 'em, or they had their greatest wish come true.

I think got the short end of the stick.

Unus was having a nervous breakdown when I found him, huddled in a corner, covered in scratches. He had a needle, some rocks, a piece of glass--kept cutting himself, bleeding and unable to believe that he could. Can't say I feel sorry for the prick. But even as tweaked as he was, I could tell he didn't remember a thing about what happened. No one does.

But I do.

I remember everything.

I've never really been stable at the best of times. Now I've got two people inside my head. Not like some skitzo with voices or anything. Just two lives I remember living, two different people I remember being. And I know which one I am. I mean, I think I do...I know which life actually happened, which person I've actually been all my life. But now I'm not sure which person I _am_. Sounds nuts, I know. Funny thing is, I've never been saner. Prosh's little med-chamber may've fixed me up, got me in equilibrium and all that, but believe me, I know what it's like to be crazy.

I wish I could just go crazy again. Who was it that said it--"Madness is the emergency exit." Some writer. Kurt Vonegut? Ken Kessey, maybe? Ah, hell, there it goes again. I've never read anything by those blokes. Hell, I probably didn't even know their _names_ a week ago. I've never been a reader, and suddenly, I've got these memories of late-night literary chats about Javert and val Jean with...it doesn't matter. Hell, I wrote a book, got it published. I don't think I can even _spell_ the word "published" and I remember writing a best-selling book. Now that's messed up.

It would be better to forget about it--it wasn't anything more than a hallucination, however real it might've been at the time. But I can't. It just keeps sifting through my mind. Which is why I'm here, nursing my second beer.

I'm not drunk enough yet.

See, it would be one thing to forget it if it'd been a horrible thing. I've been doin' that, forgettin' horrible things, all my life. It's easy. You get good and sore for awhile, you blow something up, then you say "Ah, that was cathartic. Anyone wanna drop by the pub?"

Cathartic. Crap. Another word I don't remember knowin'.

But it _wasn't_. Bad, I mean. It was...hell, Wanda was thorough, y'know. It was everything I'd ever wanted. Which...makes me stop and think. Gives me some introspective. What is it I want? What was it about that life that was so...wonderful?

If you'd've asked me a week ago what it was wanted...well, actually, I'd've probably just looked at you funny and said something glib about crushing human oppressors under foot. If you'd've asked me, say, a decade or so ago, back when I was still Mags' loyal little toady in that ridiculous outfit, the answer would've been power. Wealth. Wanda. Respect.

I guess it really does just boil down to that, y'know. Respect. Only, back then, I didn't really know what it was. I respected Magneto because I was young, stupid, and chemically imbalanced. And because he promised me things. And because I knew he was powerful, that he could hurt me, and that, if I was on his good side, he could also hurt the people I wanted hurt.

That's not respect. I don't know what it is, but it's not respect. Wasn't any respect in the way me and my teammates treated each other. No love lost between us for the most part. At least, none in my direction. What I wanted wasn't so much respect...it was fear. Well, heck, fear's good. It'll do in a pinch, and if I think like myself, then I know I'm fine with it. I want fear and power. The power to make other people miserable. Especially those arrogant, well-liked blokes with charisma and luck, and actual respect.

I'm not used to this soul-searchin' junk. I need another beer.

What the hell was I on about? Ah, right. Greatest desire and all that.

I had it there. I had _real_ respect. A decorated war-hero, a trusted lieutenant , elite soldier, best-selling author, part of a tight-knit team where, except for Kurt-the-psycho, we all actually cared about each other. We could talk about things, y'know. So I had respect, power, and influence.

And that's where things fall apart. Because the more I think about it, the more I realize it wasn't me in that world. Wanda didn't just hand me everything I thought I wanted. If someone gave me respect and power right now, I'd probably be lording it over the sapes, telling them to bow before their new master, the Terrible Toad. And...that wasn't what happened. At all. This bloke, the one named Mortimer Toynbee, who's non-existent memories I've got floatin' around in my skull...he wasn't me.

He _deserved_ it. It wasn't that he was the kind of guy who had everything I wanted. It was that he was the kind of guy who was everything I wanted to _be_. Maybe I never knew that's what I wanted to be like, but now that I've seen it... He was a pretty nice guy, cared about his mates, worked hard, good soldier, earned favor instead of bootlickin' an' brownnosin' for it. He had respect and power, earned from being one of Magneto's first soldiers and one of the hand-picked elite of the Red Guard, and he didn't _care_. The most he ever used it for was to promote a book and get a free round at the local bar.

He had a girl.

_I_ had a girl, I guess. Wonder if she remembers it too? Eh, if she does, poor thing's prob'ly sicking up right now, or getting as hammered as I am and trying to forget.

Heh. Maybe we'll run into each other.

I remember. And I wish I didn't. Everything I'll never have, I remember having. I remember the first time I saw her, the first mission we went on, the first time we did the whole awkward touch-and-blush thing, our first kiss.

It was in the rain.

Oh Gaw...it never happened. But it's still there. The first time we made love, awkward but intense, after a mission that almost got me killed. And all the times after...if the day had gone particularly well and she was feeling silly, she'd start humming "We Are the Champions." Little touches, a brush of fingers during a briefing, a quick smile. She always smelled of strawberries. And I loved her.

I am not nearly drunk enough yet.

It figures. The best thing that ever happened to me...never happened to me. None of this ever happened. I don't think I've ever even _met_ her in reality. So why do I remember her smile better than Wanda's?

Wanda...oh, when I get my hands on you, you evil evil witch...

What am I talking about? If anyone else remembers, then there must be a _reservation list_ for killing Wanda right now. And...and I'm just tired.


End file.
